Sleep disorders

Sleep disorders occupay an important position among the pathologies which may precede the appearance of headache. Some authors consider sleep disorders an expression of a functional, biochemical and/or neurotransmission alteration at central nervous system level. Sleep disorders may be distinguished, according to the Association Sleep Disorders classification in: alteration of the sleep-awake cycle, hypersomnia, parasomnia, insomnia. We observed 1876 normal children ranging from 3 to 14 years of age, 1073 (60.4%) of whom presented sleep disorders. Few studies have been carried out on the incidence of sleep disorders on casistics of healthy children. Date reported in literature state that sleep disorders do not exceed 25% of cases that is not more than one child out of four presents sleep disorders. This percentage is much lower than the 60.4% rate observed by us in children suffering from primary headache. Our results stress the importance of sleep disorders as a cephalalgic risk factor.